1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a network communication terminal apparatus such as an Internet facsimile apparatus, and particularly to a network communication terminal apparatus that is capable of outputting an error occurrence indication of an error relating to the network communication operation to a user while exchanging data with a counterpart apparatus via a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional network communication terminal apparatus such as a conventional Internet facsimile apparatus, sending or receiving an image is realized by attaching a file to an e-mail message.
Accordingly, connection with a mail server is periodically established in order to check whether there are any received e-mail messages and access the received e-mail, or to send e-mail.
In such a communication established via a network, a mail server lies between the present Internet facsimile apparatus and the counterpart apparatus corresponding to the destination of document data being sent or the sender of document data being received, and thereby, unlike the G3 facsimile apparatus that realizes direct communication with a counterpart apparatus via a phone line, errors are prone to occur, and various propositions have been made in the prior art to secure communications reliability. Examples of such measures are disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2001-358883, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2002-125090, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2002-204330.
In such prior art examples, reliability is secured by immediately signaling to the user that an error has occurred by displaying an error indication each time a network communication-related error occurs, that is, when trouble such as failure to establish a connection with the mail server occurs in network communications, the error indication is displayed until the problem is resolved.
However, there are cases such as when ADSL is used for network connection, for example, where connection may oftentimes be disturbed but may easily be reestablished, or where the server may temporarily be unable to respond due to overloading but may easily be restored back to normal.
Also, when exchanging document data via a network using e-mail, for example, oftentimes, the user may not be too concerned even when there is a slight delay in the arrival of transmitted document data at the counterpart apparatus side or the arrival of received document data at the present apparatus.
Thus, the user may be annoyed by the fact that an error indication is displayed every time an error occurs even for network communications-related errors of which the present apparatus is not the cause, and further, the user may be misguided into believing that there is a problem in his/her own apparatus.